Optical fibers are widely used for high speed data communication. An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of glass (silica) or plastic. It functions as a waveguide, or “light pipe”, to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. Optical fibers typically include a transparent core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with a lower index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by total internal reflection. This causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Joining lengths of optical fiber is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable. The ends of the fibers must be carefully cleaved, and then spliced together, either mechanically or by fusing them with heat. For this reason, optical fiber connectors have been developed to facilitate fast easy removable connections.
An optical fiber connector terminates the end of an optical fiber, and enables quicker connection and disconnection than splicing. The connectors mechanically couple and align the cores of fibers so light can pass. Better connectors lose very little light due to reflection or misalignment of the fibers.
Optical fiber connectors are used to join optical fibers where a connect/disconnect capability is required. The basic connector unit is a connector assembly. A connector assembly consists of an adapter and two connector plugs. Most optical fiber connectors are spring-loaded, so the fiber faces are pressed together when the connectors are mated. The resulting glass-to-glass or plastic-to-plastic contact eliminates signal losses that would be caused by an air gap between the joined fibers.
Unfortunately, fiber channel contaminations are responsible for many, if not most, of the fiber optic connectivity and signal integrity problems. The main sources of such contaminations are: debris generated from normal wear in mating and de-mating, dust, airborne particulates, residues from end caps, skin oil, and alcohol residue.
Hence, fiber channel connectors must be protected from contamination and/or cleaned to prevent connectivity and signal integrity problems. Common prevention methods include: use of end caps on open (non-engaged) connectors and use of specially designed shutter-protected connector space entries. Common cleaning methods include: dry cleaning and wet cleaning techniques.
As is known in the art, many systems use dense arrays of optical connectors in form of a backplane or panel. In most cases, these products are built with assumptions that: 1) individual external cables can be removed from such a panel and 2) external cable's connector and the connector on the backplane—can be accessed for cleaning individually
Highly dense bundles of connectors that can be plugged and unplugged together have been recently developed. Unfortunately, in these systems, with large arrays of fiber optic connectors, ganged together on both sides of the interconnect, access to the backplane-installed side of connectors can be difficult and require removal of the corresponding cable from the backplane structure for cleaning and re-installation. This is not only laborious, but also, by its nature, creates additional debris and dust particles resulting in new contaminants of the channel/connector being cleaned and its neighbors.
Accordingly, a need remains in the art for a system or method for cleaning fiber optic connectors. Particularly, a need remains in the art for a system or method for cleaning fiber optic connectors in closely packed arrays.